50 Great Curries of India

This is a brilliant book, and from the onset let it be known that this is not to produce restaurant curry as is known in britain. This is regional authentic indian cooking. My curry making skills have come on in leaps and bounds recently and if you are not getting anything good out of the recipes I am afraid more practise is needed. You need to use fresh spices, preferable freshly roasted and ground yourself, and not out of the small commercial supermarket glass jar variety. Fresh spices and fresh ingredients which are properly cooked in the oil and flavours to bring the flavours out. Dont expect to see any Indian dish overloaded with 2 dozen different spices. A couple is all thats needed when you know how to bring the flavour of them out into the dish you are cooking.

The best of its kind in my opinion (6/6 people found this helpful)

I love the book and use it almost exclusively when making indian food. The recipes are easy to follow. Ok, the list of ingrediants can sometimes seem daunting but it is well worth the effort. The '50 curries' title undersells this a bit. A great deal of information is given about the philosphy of indian food, and indian ingrediants. The book provides recipes for breads, rice and side dishes. A book for lovers of indian food.

Fascinating introductory chapters, covering traditional ways of using spices (3/3 people found this helpful)

There are some great recipes in this book; there are several that aren't to my tastes admittedly, but many have become firm favourites that I use again and again. However, the reasons this book has stayed a favourite are the introductory chapters; the first 54 pages of the book (earlier version) cover topics from: an introduction to the philosophy of Indian food; how to use and prepare individual spices, and their purpose within a recipe; to how to rescue a curry that hasn't turned out quite how you expected.

I find a lot of curry recipes can be a little variable in terms of results, due to natural variance in the ingredients and the number of ingredients you have to use, so knowing how to safely deviate from a recipe when necessary is very valuable (and has since helped salvage more than one meal in our household!).

I haven't seen the DVD a previous reviewer has referred to, but was surprised to read it had nothing on breads, as I found the chapter on Indian breads (Roti) within the book to be very instructive, and I gave me the confidence to start cooking chapati at home. I've had a lot of success with many recipes from the book; they have variable levels of heat, but this has generally been described adequately in the descriptions, and they do range from very hot indeed, to mild and fragrant.

I also liked the section on vegetable and potato side-dishes, as this is an area that often seems not to be covered enough in other curry books; these two chapters alone mean this book sees use every time I cook Indian food.

Sadly disappointing (4/7 people found this helpful)

I borrowed this book of my sister, and tried several of the recipes. I am not a novice in cooking and do cook indian, so was intrigued by the book and its numerous photos. The recipes I tried seem to come out bland. I question the measurements of spices used, which seem in cases to little. Perhaps it is written with a slant to very mild indian cooking, in which case if this is what you are going for, it could be a good book for you. If you are looking for complex and deep flavours, or with more heat, sadly you maybe disappointed by this little book.

Good (4/4 people found this helpful)

This is a nice little book which gets straight to the point.

The first 65 pages describe the ingredients, such as various types of chilli, herbs and spices. There quite a few pages on what ingredients to use for thickening, colouring, souring and to change the aroma.

The actual recipes are fairly simple. The text is generally on the left and a nice picture to the right. The recipes I have cooked so far didn't take too long and were very nice! There's a good balance of meat, fish and vegetables dishes.

The book is quite small, much smaller than A4 paper but bigger than A5. At 224 pages I think it's a little expensive. That's why I have given it 4 stars.

Camellia Panjabi

Reader Reviews:

Great Book (0/0 people found this helpful)

The best of its kind in my opinion (6/6 people found this helpful)

Fascinating introductory chapters, covering traditional ways of using spices (3/3 people found this helpful)

Sadly disappointing (4/7 people found this helpful)

Good (4/4 people found this helpful)

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